“Christianity is emasculated of its intellectual relevance. It remains a vehicle of spirituality and moral guidance at the individual level perhaps; at the communal level it is little more than an expression of sentimentalized togetherness. The mental secularization of Christians means that nowadays we meet only as worshipping beings, not as thinking beings.” --- Harry Blamires, “The Christian Mind”

Sometimes I think the world at large sees Christians in one of two categories. We are either do-gooders (we do nice things – care for the poor and feed the children sort of thing) and/or we are whiners (we are spit-spewin’ protesters against all sorts of stuff). I’m not sure they see us as particularly smart.

I’ve found it tough to get my head around some of Blamires’ thoughts. He’s the king of the run on sentence. He says in three words what I think he could’ve said in one. But he’s making me think and he’s hurting my head. It’s as if he’s busting open some heretofore atrophied neural pathways or something. So please don’t think that I think I’m Mr. Intellectual because I don’t and I’m not. I just believe he’s right.

He laments the fact that we as Christians have withdrawn from the cultural conversation. “There is no Christian dialogue,” he says. We don’t know how to engage the problems of today within a Christian thought context. We might’ve made a shallow stab at it with our WWJD bracelets but when it comes to say, the question of does God have anything to say about work and how does that apply to the Church becoming a creative generator of jobs for a city such that humans flourish – we don’t even go there. Say what?

We lamely spout that God has the answers to all our questions but don’t have the foggiest notion of how to go about that outside of prayer – which is, of course, THE starting place.

This is one of the purposes of SALLTed. We are creating a Christian dialogue to the benefit of an entire city. We believe that God loves people and that He loves the places where they congregate – cities. Human dignity and value is uniquely rooted in the Bible (If you didn’t know that I suppose Blamires’ point is made). If you are a leader in business or government or education or the arts or in media who is a Christ-follower, why did God give you your influence in this city at this moment of history? Why do humans in OKC flourish because God put you in charge? At SALLTed we create a Christian dialogue because we believe that Jesus wants us loving Him with all of our minds.